Order Processing Virtual Assistant: orders, shipping and returns handled from £5 per hour
Hire an order processing virtual assistant who works for your store alone. Your VA processes every order, keeps shipping statuses current, handles cancellations and address changes, and runs returns, exchanges and refunds inside your policy, from our managed office in Cairo, on your working hours, with a UK team supervising quality. One named person who learns your products, your couriers and your customers and owns the order flow end to end, not a 3PL's support desk working a ticket queue and not a freelancer you brief for each backlog. It is the operations half of our e-commerce virtual assistant service, from £5 per hour on the entry rate.
What an order processing virtual assistant handles each day
Order processing
Reviews new orders, checks for fraud flags, address problems and stock conflicts, and moves each order to fulfilment or to you, so nothing sits unprocessed past the window you set.
Fulfilment tracking and shipping updates
Tracks every order through your warehouse or 3PL, updates shipping statuses and tracking on the store and the marketplaces, and chases the couriers when a parcel stalls.
Cancellations, edits and address changes
Handles the requests that arrive after checkout: cancellations, quantity changes, address corrections and delivery instructions, applied before the order ships rather than after.
Returns & exchanges
Issues return authorisations, tracks the returned goods, books exchanges and restocks or writes off items to your rules, and identifies the patterns that reduce return rates.
Refunds and goodwill within your policy
Processes refunds and partial refunds, applies the goodwill gestures you allow and brings anything outside policy to you with the context written up.
Order messages and reviews
Answers the customer messages an order generates, where is it, can I change it, it arrived damaged, in your voice and on your marketplaces' standards, protecting your seller rating.
Different stack? These are examples. Your VA is trained on your store, your couriers and your policies during onboarding, and works inside your accounts, not ours.
A dedicated order processing VA compared with a 3PL's support desk or a freelancer
A 3PL moves boxes well and handles exceptions badly, because exceptions need your policy, your customer history and your judgement, and the support desk has none of them. The result is that the founder still fields the cancellations, the damaged parcels and the refund arguments. A freelancer clears a backlog and leaves; the next backlog needs a new briefing, and the mistakes made in between are found by your customers.
A dedicated order processing VA is one person in your order flow every working day. They know which courier loses parcels, which products come back and why, which customers deserve a goodwill gesture and where your policy stops. The exceptions get handled at the moment they arise, by someone who has handled the last hundred, and you see only the ones that need your decision.
Who an order processing virtual assistant is built for
Founders still processing their own orders
Every order, update and return is you. One VA takes the flow so you take the product and the marketing.
Brands using a 3PL that still field the exceptions
The warehouse ships; the cancellations, address changes and damaged-parcel messages still land on you. Your VA becomes the desk between the 3PL and the customer.
Marketplace sellers with a rating to protect
On Amazon and eBay, late responses and mishandled returns cost more than the refund. Your VA works to the marketplace's standards and flags anything that could touch your account health.
Stores with seasonal peaks
Scale hours up for the peak and back down afterwards, with no penalty and no hiring, and the returns wave in January handled by someone who saw the orders go out.
What an order processing virtual assistant costs in the UK
The entry rate is £5 per hour for the first 6 months on the Entry tier, 3 months on Mid, 1 month on Expert. It covers your dedicated VA's time, our office facilities in Cairo, and the supervision and management that keep quality up. After the promotion, the e-commerce rate card applies: £6.50 per hour full time on the Entry tier (160 hours a month, £1,040) or £6.80 per hour part time (80 hours a month, £544), with Mid at £7.48 and Expert at £8.13 per hour full time. Your platform subscriptions and your 3PL contract stay in your name; there are no per-order fees.
Set that against a UK in-house e-commerce hire once salary, employer National Insurance, pension, holiday and a desk are counted; the comparison card on this page shows the calculator's model, and the full calculator gives your figures for your hours.
What the £5/hour entry rate includes
- Dedicated VA, never shared
- UK-hour aligned support
- Management and supervision included
- Recruitment and onboarding included
- Office infrastructure included
- VA replacement available
- No NI, pension, or holiday costs
- No long-term contract, rolling monthly
These are typical estimates. Get your exact numbers in the full calculator. Or read how much a virtual assistant costs in the UK.
Calculate your exact savings →How to hire an order processing VA: from first call to a flow that runs without you
Why a managed order processing VA beats a 3PL's support desk or a freelancer
Common questions about hiring an order processing virtual assistant
Didn't find your answer? Browse more common questions in the Help Center.
Every order handled. Every return, too.
One dedicated order processing VA, from £5 per hour. Book a free 15-minute call.
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